The present invention relates to the field of software development and deployment, and more particularly to packaging integration application components for deployment.
In general, software applications are developed modularly, where each module is designed to perform a specific, limited process or function. Modularizing tasks and processes allows the various software components to be tested and altered as necessary in the development process, and also allows easier updates and modifications to published and deployed software in use. The modularization approach to software development has been adopted in a wide variety of software-related fields. The information integration field is one such field.
Information integration describes utilizing various information sources in an enterprise to accomplish some result. An enterprise is typically organized into units or departments, each of which produces information as a result of various activities. Each of these sources of information can be used to drive enterprise operations. For example, sales information may be used to generate forecasts, and thus drive human resource allocation and purchasing activities for a manufacturer. Integration projects are increasingly designed using graphical integration development tools, such as DataStage manufactured by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Graphical integration project tools allow developers to design integration applications in a graphical environment, where data, processes, and work flows are represented graphically, where parametric values may be assigned to and specified for graphical entities representing the data, processes, and flows.
A typical integration project will use the modular development approach, where a set of integration applications are designed to accomplish the goal of the project. Furthermore, the integration project will typically include application support components, which may include special libraries and other data. Prior art integration approaches distribute present revisions of application packages, which leave enterprise systems with no backup in the event of a software failure or other error. Therefore, there is need for a means by which present versions of application packages may be made available, but also allow enterprise equipment to have a fall back version of applications and application support components.